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'The sky is so soft,' Sam thinks. He isn't sure where that thought comes from. It's just that the muted grey-blue above him, dotted with clouds like the puff paint he used to be so infatuated with when he was a kid... well, it's calming. And the blanket of deep green and brown pine needles under him (some scattered over) makes it tempting to just close his eyes. But when Sam catches his eyelids fluttering shut, he forces them open.
He can't sleep. He promised Dean he wouldn't, he reminds himself, glancing down at the pool of velvet red at his left side.
Red, red, red.
'It's beautiful.' The thought drifts through his foggy mind.
The pain had stopped awhile ago.
Birdsong echoes around the forest, ricocheting off evergreen trunks. Chilly sunlight mottles the earth under him. Sam's not cold, though. His limbs have gone strangely numb.
Suddenly, the bird calls come to an abrupt halt. The hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand up, and he strains his ears to hear something, anything.
"Sam!" A shout resonates from his left. Gruff, fierce, and agitated as hell. Sam knows that voice, recognition drowsy as he struggles to place it.
"Sammy!" There it is again. Closer, now.
Sam hears muffled footsteps slow at the edge of his perception, then rush toward him. He knows it's his brother. As Dean drops to his knees on the pine needles, the edges of Sam's lips curl faintly into a smile.
Sam watches Dean through half-lidded eyes as his brother's fingers press against his forehead, face, neck.
"Sam. Oh god, oh god, no. Sammy." Dean's forest green eyes stare desperately down at him, wide and terrified. His jaw clenches and unclenches, tears threatening to spill over. Calloused hands cradle Sam's head.
"...Dean," he rasps, iron thick on his tongue.
"Hey, there you are. C'mon, we- we gotta get you outta here," Dean laughs, on the edge of hysteria as a tear rolls off his cheek. He manages to haul the kid into a kneeling position before he cries out.
'That's funny,' Sam thinks. He hasn't been able to feel anything up until now.
"Dean, stop. It's useless." He grimaces. The unspoken words hang heavy in the forest air. "I guess your deal was for nothing, huh?" Sam remarks wearily, swaying on his knees.
Dean tightens his grip under his little brother's arms. "Don't say that. Don't you say that to me. You know it ain't true."
"Isn't it, though?"
Sam pauses, just looking at Dean's face. Trying not to see the pain, guilt, and fear written there. He raises a hand to his brother's cheek, needing to touch one last time. He's going to miss him.
It's getting harder and harder to stay upright, Sam's limbs feeling heavy and clumsy. His hand falls from Dean's face as he pitches forward.
The last thing Sam registers before he slips into darkness is hands clutching at his back, heaving shoulders, a face pressed into his hair, and a feeling like, for the first time, he is completely, utterly safe.